ServicePlus

Strange things happen around here.

Some can be explained, others defy reason—but often, the explanations are stranger than the events themselves.

Take our thermostat.

When my wife and I moved into our new house in Almost Iowa, we started bickering over the room temperature. In winter, it was too cold; in summer, too hot.

I accused her of tampering with the thermostat. Naturally, she denied it—and then had the nerve to accuse me of the same.

“Manual thermostats don’t adjust themselves,” I snapped, only to hear those exact words thrown back at me a week later.

One day, while sorting through bills, my wife had an epiphany.

“Look at this,” she said, handing me the quarterly water-softener bill.

“What?” I asked, squinting at the paper.

“Right there,” she said, pointing to a line midway down the page: Adjusted thermostat.

Since we rent the water softener, I called the company. “What’s this item labeled ‘adjusted thermostat’ on my bill?”

“Let me check,” the voice on the other end said.

A moment later, she returned. “That’s ServicePlus.”

“ServicePlus? What’s that? And did we order it?”

“You don’t order ServicePlus,” she said matter-of-factly. “It’s just something we provide.”

“And charge for,” I added.

Silence.

“You’re a water-softener company. Why are you manually changing people’s thermostats?”

You know that feeling when someone hears you but doesn’t listen? That’s what this was. Living in Almost Iowa, I get that a lot. I’m a stranger in a strange land, surrounded by unspoken local customs I can’t quite grasp. No matter how hard I try, the tide of small-town culture always wins.

“We find many customers are careless with their thermostats,” she explained. “We care, even if they don’t. That’s why it’s called ServicePlus.”

“How often does this happen?”

“Caleb comes out once a month,” she said.

My wife, listening on speakerphone, nodded knowingly. “Caleb O’Leary,” she whispered.

“You know this guy?”

Of course she did. In Almost Iowa, everyone knows everyone—except me.

“He’s a bit odd,” she said, “but sweet.”

I wasn’t satisfied. “When was Caleb last here?”

Fingernails clicked on a keyboard. “He was at your house on October 13th.”

“I don’t recall an appointment that day.”

“With ServicePlus, no appointment’s necessary.”

“So how did Caleb get in?”

The question stumped her for a moment. “Oh,” she said, “you’re the guy who locks his doors.”

I am. It’s a city habit I can’t shake.

“So how did he get in?” I pressed.

My wife, still sorting bills, paused and rifled through another stack of papers. “Here it is,” she said, underlining an item on the water-softener bill and handing it to me.

ServicePlus Oct 13: Locksmith.